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Hacker News Guidelines

(news.ycombinator.com)
446 points tonmoy | 6 comments | 24 Aug 23 16:25 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source | bottom
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yjftsjthsd-h ◴[24 Aug 23 17:09 UTC] No.37251581[source]▶
The one thing I wish was added - either in the guidelines or as a change to the actual web UI - was replying to a comment that you're downvoting; it's frustrating both to have one's own comments downvoted without explanation, and to come across a comment that's grey without obvious reason (Was it factually incorrect? Endorsing an unpopular idea? It's not always obvious).

(I'm not saying HN should do exactly the same thing, but one example is Slashdot's system where a comment can get downvoted in a way that tags it specifically as trolling/offtopic/whatever - https://slashdot.org/faq/mod-metamod.shtml seems to describe it alright)

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epanchin ◴[24 Aug 23 17:15 UTC] No.37251692[source]▶
I do not downvote for comments I disagree with.

I downvote for off topic, or for comments which detract from the conversation. I believe most others with the ability to downvote do the same.

Replying to off topic posts would be counter to the purpose of downvoting.

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1. yjftsjthsd-h ◴[24 Aug 23 17:19 UTC] No.37251747[source]▶
I probably agree that if downvotes were only for off-topic/trolling/unhelpful comments the situation would be better, but I don't think we're there; I am fairly confident that downvoting for disagreement is common and officially okay.
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2. almostnormal ◴[24 Aug 23 17:46 UTC] No.37252190[source]▶
Similarly, are up-votes expressing agreement or do they indicate something worth reading (opposite of thd topic/trolling/unhelpful)?

Some comments can go yo-yo, but I don't think it is possible to see the two counts separately.

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3. kccqzy ◴[24 Aug 23 17:59 UTC] No.37252388[source]▶
I asked this exact same thing a while ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36673613

So yes downvotes for mere disagreements are okay here.

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4. em-bee ◴[24 Aug 23 18:10 UTC] No.37252517[source]▶
on a technical level, being able to see downvotes and upvotes separately would actually be interesting, as it does carry a signal, but it probably doesn't happen often enough to be worth the effort to implement.
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5. sanderjd ◴[24 Aug 23 18:21 UTC] No.37252657[source]▶
Yep, there is no doubting what the policy is. But it is reasonable to question whether it is the right policy.
6. epanchin ◴[01 Sep 23 21:21 UTC] No.37356309{3}[source]▶
Reddit does this as “controversial” and it is a good feature.